Adam Menelaws

The Scottish-born architect Adam Menelaws (1753–1831) moved to Russia in 1784. He worked in Tsarskoye Selo in the 1830s. Classicism was seen as too arid and monotonous then, a “barrack-like” style gradually replaced by eclecticism and search of new forms. Impressed with Menelaws, Alexander I employed him to refurbish the Alexander Park. Menelaws constructed a cascade near the Alexander Palace, improved the canals, laid a road, etc. He designed the White Tower, the Chapelle, the Arsenal, greenhouses, the Farm, and several bridges. His works were mostly stylized like Medieval English Gothic, which was a characteristic trait of the early nineteenth-century Romanticism. Menelaws was also responsible for the building of a stone pavilion for llamas, exotic animals that Alexander I had received from South America. Almost all the architect’s works are located near the boundaries of the Alexander Park and surround it like some Gothic necklace.